The present invention relates to a beverage dispensing apparatus which has a container in which the solid ingredients are mixed with a liquid transported to the container and more particularly with a beverage dispensing apparatus having a pair of arms to grasp a container in which the solid ingredients of the beverage are mixed with the liquid ingredients.
Beverage dispensing apparatus such as coffee brewers generally are provided with arms or slots to support the lip of the brewing basket into which the hot water is distributed over the ground coffee spread therein. Typical consumer coffee makers today have slots formed by a pair of guide rails into which the flange of a brew basket is positioned when the basket is filled with ground coffee. The rails are positioned on either side of the hot water dispensing openings in the underneath surface of the brewer. The top surface of the flange is placed into an abutting engagement with the underneath surface of the coffee maker to minimize the escape of water vapor when in operation. Consequently, consumers ordinarily must purchase replacement baskets specifically designed for the coffee maker.
There have been attempts in the designs of grinders primarily designed for the commercial or restaurant market to accommodate for varying diameter of the baskets as illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,893,758 issued Jan. 16, 1990 and assigned to Bunn-O-Matic. This patent disclose the use of a pair of leaf springs that flex apart upon insertion of a basket therebetween and due to the complimentary shape of the springs with the external surface of the basket. The structure of the leaf spring apparatus permits the insertion of baskets having varying diameters. This is important contribution since there is no universal standard for the size of brewing baskets and it becomes awkward if an operator has to manually adjust the arms to accept baskets whenever the diameter changes. Additionally, this type of arm configuration does not create a need to contain the steam emanating from the brewing operation when hot water is distributed over the ground coffee.
The prior art, however, does not address the twin problems of varying flange widths and basket diameters. If a basket with a flange of a width greater than the width of the slots defined by guide rails is used in a guide rail design, then the only solution is to manually adjust the guide rails to increase the width of the slots. This is usually not practical. With arm support designs, the arms must be repositioned manually or else the basket flange will not be accepted by the apparatus or be ill positioned with respect to the underneath surface of the brewing apparatus. Similarly, brew baskets unfortunately are not standardized, thus the distance between rails is often insufficient to accommodate a brew basket, for example, that is larger than the one usually purchased and accompanying the brewer.
Thus, a paramount object of the present invention is to provide for a beverage dispensing device in which the support arms for a beverage mixing basket can accept baskets with wide diameter ranges while simultaneously accepting wide ranges of baskets in which the top flange width also may vary.
It is another object of the present invention to provide for a beverage dispensing device having support arms that can articulate horizontally and vertically.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide for simple construction of beverage basket support arms that can articulate horizontally and vertically while maintaining the basket in a centered position beneath the beverage dispenser.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide for simple construction of beverage basket support arms that can accommodate beverage baskets of varying diameter and support flanges while maintaining an effective seal against the escape of steam emanating when hot water is being distributed over the solid ingredients in the basket.
It is still a further object of the present invention to provide for a construction of a beverage basket support sub-assembly that is both easily positioned within the housing of an apparatus for the preparation of a beverage and that includes beverage basket support arms that can pivot about both a vertical and horizontal axis so as to receive beverage baskets of differing diameters and flange thicknesses.